Kickstarter employees vote to unionize • Hacker News Board

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#441

Post by vkou » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 7:14 PM UTC

pathseeker wrote: post #324

zipwitch wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was that "union rules" or "the way the company had agreed to comply with their agreement with the union"? Because 'work to rule' can be a double-edged sword, and in my experience companies just love to blame their own chosen behavior on the union. "We have to fire you if you're late five times this quarter, because the union" really means "after we frequently and arbitrarily abused employees under the excuse of 'atte…

That's still "union rules". If the union chose to be pedantic and insisted upon these rules in negotiation, then it's really the union's fault.

The alternative to enforcing rules pedantically is enforcing them arbitrarily, which is what happens in non-union environments. One set of rules for Billy, another set of rules for Sally.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#442

Post by new_realist » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 7:15 PM UTC

yibg wrote: post #439

elicash wrote: post #379

1. Why do tech workers need a union? If you want to improve your workplace, you have additional leverage to fight for changes if you're in a union. There's often very little you can do alone. This might be things like pay, or it might be something else entirely. 2. But aren't tech workers elite coddled rich kids who are lucky to make what they receive? I mean, no. But even if so, high pay doesn't stop athletes from j…

Just in terms of salary isn’t an union somewhat contradictory to the engineering ethos of meritocracy? I mean we’d like to think that the good ideas win and impact and outcome matters. We hold up the 10x engineers and those that make an outsized contribution to the industry / company / product right? Shouldn’t they get higher compensation compared to the rest of the work force? How do we square that with collective b…

The two ideas are not incompatible. You can set a company-wide curve for promotions.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#443

Post by totaldude87 » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 7:16 PM UTC

elicash wrote: post #379

1. Why do tech workers need a union? If you want to improve your workplace, you have additional leverage to fight for changes if you're in a union. There's often very little you can do alone. This might be things like pay, or it might be something else entirely. 2. But aren't tech workers elite coddled rich kids who are lucky to make what they receive? I mean, no. But even if so, high pay doesn't stop athletes from j…

I think the tech people/artists working on gaming industry , Uber's male chauvinistic culture and the problems associated with that can be a typical examples of "why tech needs to unionize".

So far , the medium.com has been the "systematic problems reporting tool" for tech and that just generates the views and small changes..

In the past decade, i hate to see that the word "unionizing" in itself has become a bad word to hear for anyone from Management.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#444

Post by m0zg » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 7:16 PM UTC

dopamean wrote: post #436

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Athletics is not as luxurious you might think: https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2016/aug/07/olympic-games-...

Right but when someone says "athletes unionize" in this context they're almost certainly talking about the NFL and NBA. Not semi-amateur olympians.

Speaking of which, it just blows my mind that US olympians routinely win a ton of gold against government-supported olympians from e.g. Russia or China. There wouldn't even _be_ any olympians from there if the government didn't fund it.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#445

Post by arrosenberg » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 7:16 PM UTC

mdonahoe wrote: post #411

elicash wrote: post #379

1. Why do tech workers need a union? If you want to improve your workplace, you have additional leverage to fight for changes if you're in a union. There's often very little you can do alone. This might be things like pay, or it might be something else entirely. 2. But aren't tech workers elite coddled rich kids who are lucky to make what they receive? I mean, no. But even if so, high pay doesn't stop athletes from j…

"Athletes unionize" is one of the better arguments I've heard for why devs should. I'm curious to learn more about the origins of the players' union.

Baseball players unionized in the 60s for the same reasons any other group did - poor wages, poor working conditions, and owners who operated as feudal lords due to the reserve clause.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#446

Post by kerkeslager » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 7:16 PM UTC

arrogantidiot wrote: post #71

Is it not possible for employees to instead start a copycat of Kickstarter and treat employees fairly? Why is it OK to shit in somebody else's house?

Companies inject themselves into people's lives and exert whatever power they possibly can, so I'm not sure what your objection is to workers doing exactly the same thing.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#447

Post by acdha » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 7:16 PM UTC

Uhhrrr wrote: post #380

zipwitch wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was that "union rules" or "the way the company had agreed to comply with their agreement with the union"? Because 'work to rule' can be a double-edged sword, and in my experience companies just love to blame their own chosen behavior on the union. "We have to fire you if you're late five times this quarter, because the union" really means "after we frequently and arbitrarily abused employees under the excuse of 'atte…

Think about where the company's interest lies. Without the union, of course they would want their employee to just plug the thing in. They wouldn't agree to such a silly stricture if it wasn't forced upon them by the union.

This is a very simplistic assumption that there’s one company interest which everyone understands and supports. I’ve seen many places where it would be as simple as department A owns that function and they care about making their lives easier, not your productivity. That’s basically the norm for large company IT departments, with nary a union in sight.

Remember, there’s been a well-funded campaign pushing back against the New Deal for longer than most of us have been alive. Unions are not perfect but there are a lot of misrepresentation and urban legends circulating and most of the stories you hear are likely either wrong or leaving out key details (e.g. the union got adamant about certain tasks after management tried to avoid honoring their contract). Unless you have first-hand experience or lots of documentation, be skeptical.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#448

Post by whatshisface » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 7:16 PM UTC

anarchodev wrote: post #396

toasterlovin wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being against advocating violence against a group is not the same thing as agreeing with that group. This is basic logic.

That's correct. Simply disagreeing with Nazis is ineffectual and is very common among those with sympathies toward them as a shield from criticism. I'd prefer to work with people who are actively opposed to them. Sorry if that wasn't clear somehow.

Well, if everybody disagreed with them there wouldn't be any, so maybe that's enough.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#449

Post by jimbokun » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 7:16 PM UTC

cortesoft wrote: post #438

mdonahoe wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Athletes unionize" is one of the better arguments I've heard for why devs should. I'm curious to learn more about the origins of the players' union.

Part of the reason athletes unionize, though, is because they play for monopoly leagues; there are no competitors for the top leagues in most American sports, so it isn't like you can just leave and play in the other NBA if you don't like their practices.

Well, not a monopoly, but Apple, Google, and several other major Silicon Valley corporations did collude to keep developer salaries low.

Re: Kickstarter employees vote to unionize

#450

Post by commandlinefan » Tue, Feb 18, 2020, 7:17 PM UTC

yibg wrote: post #439

elicash wrote: post #379

1. Why do tech workers need a union? If you want to improve your workplace, you have additional leverage to fight for changes if you're in a union. There's often very little you can do alone. This might be things like pay, or it might be something else entirely. 2. But aren't tech workers elite coddled rich kids who are lucky to make what they receive? I mean, no. But even if so, high pay doesn't stop athletes from j…

Just in terms of salary isn’t an union somewhat contradictory to the engineering ethos of meritocracy? I mean we’d like to think that the good ideas win and impact and outcome matters. We hold up the 10x engineers and those that make an outsized contribution to the industry / company / product right? Shouldn’t they get higher compensation compared to the rest of the work force? How do we square that with collective b…

Actors are unionized (or “guildized”, which is basically the same thing), but their pay varies wildly and seems to be more or less relative to their objective value.